IAM757- Educator Empowers Women-Owned Small Businesses

Erin Perkins is an online business manager and accessibility educator. Through her business, Mabely Q, she empowers women-owned small businesses to grow bigger and serve better, taking behind-the-scenes admin work off their plates and advising her clients how to create a more inclusive environment for their communities.

• CEO Hack: Profits Plus software
• CEO Nugget: It's not too late to do anything
• CEO Defined: Taking ownership, doing what you love to do and showing support

Website: https://mabelyq.com/

Instagram: instagram.com/mabely_q
Linked In: https://www.linkedin.com/company/65401826/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MabelyQ

FULL INTERVIEW

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Transcription

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00:02 – Intro

Do you want to learn effective ways to build relationships, generate sales, and grow your business from successful entrepreneurs, startups, and CEOs without listening to a long, long, long interview? If so, you've come to the right place. Gresham Harkless values your time and is ready to share with you precisely the information you're in search of. This is the I AM CEO Podcast.

00:26 – Gresham Harkless

Hello. Hello. Hello. This is Gresh from the I Am CEO podcast. I have a very special guest on the show today. I have Erin Perkins of Mabley Q. Erin, it's awesome to have you on the show.

00:39 – Erin Perkins

Hi. Nice to have thanks for having me on the show.

00:43 – Gresham Harkless

No problem. Super excited to have you on. And before I jump in, I want to read a little bit more about Erin so you can hear about all the awesome things that she's doing. Erin is an online business manager and accessibility educator. Through her business, Mabeliqueux, she empowers women-owned small businesses to grow bigger and serve better, taking behind-the-scenes admin work off their plates and advising her clients on how to create a more inclusive environment for their communities. Erin, are you ready to speak to the I AM CEO community?

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01:09 – Erin Perkins

Yeah. I am definitely ready to talk to the I AM CEO community. I think this is like, what you're doing is really awesome, and most people have this image of CEO, and it really is not that image anymore.

01:26 – Gresham Harkless

Yeah. Absolutely. Well, that's the most exciting thing I, you know, I get to really do, you know, during the interview is really to get to show the holistic aspect of entrepreneurs and business owners. And I know that one of the things that I usually like to jump-start us, so to speak, is really to hear a little bit more about how you got started. So could you take us through what I call your CEO story, and what led you to get started?

01:45 – Erin Perkins

So I actually got laid off in December twenty eighteen, and I have been working for the corporation for, like, twelve almost twelve years. And it was just, like, one of those things. Like, what am I gonna do? I didn't know because that was, like, all I knew. I never really had any, like, plan beyond that because it was literally I was kind of raised in the aspect of you find a company, you stay with them. It wasn't about jumping from job to job. Like, I feel like today's generation does. They jump from job to job because there are better opportunities out there. And I was like, I really don't wanna start back at square one with another company. I was like, why don't I give this a try and just start my own business? And it bit fell into something really awesome just because I found that people in DC were actually really kind of awesome and helpful, and it has been a great two and a half years so far.

02:45 – Gresham Harkless

Nice. Absolutely love that. And so many times when you, kinda put things out there, like, put in, you know, whether it be starting a business, starting an organization, or whatever, it kinda seems like those people that you need start to get attracted to you kinda like a magnet, and then things start to really good things start to happen a lot of times. Yeah. Awesome. Awesome. Awesome. So I wanted to drill down a little bit deeper and hear about Maybelline Q. Could you take us through exactly how you serve your clients and and what exactly you do to help support them?

03:11 – Erin Perkins

So there are two top parts to my business. My main part is making income and I am an online business manager for probably just, I think, just to my client. I respect them. And, basically, I run the back end of their businesses so that they can handle their clients upfront. Like, one of them is a hair and makeup artist, and she does so many weddings. Like, last week, she had three weddings and four photo shoots. She has no time to, like, go and check emails and deal with future inquiries.

So, like, I take care of all of that for her. I make sure her schedule is set. I communicate with the client and make sure she's getting paid and make sure she's all set. So the day of services, she just shows up. And my other clients, like, they do coaching. So, like, I handle a lot of the little stuff that they wouldn't think is necessary. And it kind of, like, allows them to really do what they're really good at, which is, like, why they started their business.

A lot of businesses tend to fall back or fail because they're like, I hate the little stuff. I love all the details. And the second part of the business, which I'm working on really, is accessibility education. I realized there's a gap in the market for small business owners because if you look up information for how to be accessible on the web and stuff, most businesses can do that because they have the money for it. But small business owners, don't know any difference. They don't know what they don't know.

So I've been using Instagram, and Facebook as a way to set a little bit more awareness and share tips and tricks on how to do that. I have an online course that I'm working on creating right now that will be coming up hopefully in the next couple of months or so to really kind of help people make their business more accessible because you really don't know who your audience is until you meet them. And that's what happened to me most of my posters or courses I took, they didn't know. And I was like, okay. Well, let me help you.

05:24 – Gresham Harkless

Yeah. I absolutely love that. And I love, as you said, you know, most times when you are starting a business, you don't realize, all the other things that you have to do outside of running the business. And sometimes that's not something that is in our zone of genius. So often you have to find somebody or have a partner or you do really phenomenal things to be able to take care of a lot of those behind the scenes so that they can do the things that they really wanted to do when they started a business. And I know you touched on the accessibility aspect. For those that may not know exactly what accessibility is, could you kinda give us more Yeah. Like, a general definition of what that looks like?

05:54 – Erin Perkins

I am deaf I know it's ironic. I'm on a podcast because, like, I can't listen to podcast, which, like, makes me incredibly frustrated that I feel like I missed out on it. But, basically, accessibility in the online industry, I'm teaching people how to make sure things are a lot of people do videos, but they get to get captured. And I'm like, like, I would love to watch it there, but you don't have a caption. Or, talk about alt tags on Instagram and on your website. You gotta do that for people who don't have any vision or low vision, need that and, like, making things a little bit more accessible. I'm not quite focused on web accessibility yet because that is a beast. Mhmm. That's, like, too much.

But I'm telling people I just kinda, like, put things together when they do video or if they do online coaching or if they do social media, how you can do just little thing just to make your stuff a little bit more accessible. The podcast is definitely something I'm trying to tackle and encourage you and everyone to transcribe their podcast and, you know, how do I really build it into your workflow?

07:04 – Gresham Harkless

Yeah. That's extremely huge. And you're you're absolutely right where I usually say the name of the game is all about visibility. And visibility is not always in the literal sense. It's in so many different ways because you have that accessibility. You can get seen and heard by so many different people, but you're coming to them and how they're able to kinda take on that information. I think that's one of the best ways for marketing and advertising, and and definitely a reminder to ourselves to make sure that we start transcribing our episodes as well too so that we don't we don't make it on the naughty list.

07:30 – Erin Perkins

It's hard, like, because you don't think about it. You don't think about who will be listening to your podcast. And I know me and my friends, we all, like, talk to each other. They're like, what podcast do you like? I don't know. I don't really know because if I go to a website, it's not necessarily accessible. And then I don't wanna see my text or whatnot. We have, like, so many internal conflicts with this whole thing. Because I know so many people also have amazing attacks, and I do feel like I'm missing out.

08:01 – Gresham Harkless

Yeah. Absolutely. Well no. I mean, I think that's part of it, and that's why I love what you're doing is because a lot of times we don't know, and till we get that information out there, till we understand what accessibility is and what exactly that looks like in so many different levels, and how we can take those small steps in order to make sure our podcast, our videos, or what whatever that might be is accessible to even more people is a huge thing.

08:21 – Erin Perkins

Yep.

08:21 – Gresham Harkless

Awesome. So now I wanted to ask you for what I call your secret sauce. And this could be for yourself or your business, but what do you feel kinda sets you apart and makes you unique?

08:30 – Erin Perkins

I think because I think what makes me unique is the fact that I approach a lot of my clients and new people that I meet with a lot of empathy. I never used to be that empathetic because I feel like when you work for a corporate student, you can't be. You're, like, cold-hearted. But, like, I found that people are drawn to me because I am very open and honest, and I and I'll treat them as much as because I realize and people are like, oh my god. I'm so sorry. I didn't think about that. I'm like, it's okay. And then it's like that. And I feel like just being able to approach a situation with a lot of empathy makes people belong to me. Plus, my favorite word is awesome, makes every day awesome. But it is my friend who makes fun of me because I use the word awesome all the time.

09:20 – Gresham Harkless

No. That's an awesome word to use because I use awesome all the time as well too. And I use it as especially as a transition word as well. So I am with you on that. So there we go from the same camp.

09:29 – Erin Perkins

I kinda made up my own time for it. I'm using it because. That's awesome.

09:33 – Gresham Harkless

I like that. I gotta do that as well too, so I gotta come up with a version of it, but I might just borrow that as well if that's okay.

09:41 – Erin Perkins

Yeah.

09:41 – Gresham Harkless

Nice. So I wanted to, switch gears a little bit, and I wanted to ask you for what I call a CEO hack. So this could be like an app, a book, or a habit that you have, but what's something that makes you more effective and efficient?

09:53 – Erin Perkins

I would ship it. Like, I think it's genius and being able to switch from computer to computer. Well, like, I have a laptop. I have a desktop. I have my iPad and Google Drive. And honestly, I feel like what really made my life switch off was learning about profit, but

10:12 – Gresham Harkless

Okay.

10:12 – Erin Perkins

I love the platform, paying yourself, and then having different buckets of each account for operating profit, taxes, and, yeah, owner payment and income. So I have five accounts. And it's been nice because, like, I lost some income during the COVID, and this was, like, really helpful because I had money saved up in my profit so I could take some of that profit and pay myself so that I wouldn't be making as much during this time. So I feel like that was just, like, super helpful to me.

10:47 – Gresham Harkless

Awesome. So now I wanted to ask you for what I call a CEO nugget. So this could be a word of wisdom or a piece of advice. It might be something you would tell a client, or if you were to hop into a time machine, you would tell your younger business self.

10:59- Erin Perkins

So I, honestly, I always kinda felt like I never envisioned myself owning my own business, but, like, I, like, when I first started, I'm like, kind of like, why did I start this delay? Why didn't this happen to me? I'm coming up this summer, and it is never too late to start anything. And I think that's, like, the biggest thing for me even though, like, a lot of my business peers, they're, like, in the late twenty, and so those, like, tenth years, I honestly kinda feel like I missed out on doing something, but really, no. It was meant for me to start when I started. And that's why I truly believe that sometimes things aren't meant to be until they need to happen, and that's what happened to me.

11:45 – Gresham Harkless

Yeah. I absolutely love that. And you're right. I think so many times, especially in entrepreneurship and business, I don't think that you take just one thing from running a business. I think you take your collective experience. And a lot of times, those things that we've done in jobs or in positions that we didn't even think were related start to show up and running a business because you have to do so many different things and juggle it needs to be aware of so many different things at the

12:08 – Erin Perkins

It's the only started off as a and on my business manager, and I had no intention to do the accessibility thing. It wouldn't be even on my radar until I went through the thing, and now, like, they're just kind of important. Right? And so I, like, set aside the graphic design because I feel fortunate that I got to do it for twenty years. And there are so many other amazing graphic designers out there, so I felt like I was good with this. I got to do what I went to school for. Let's do something that has more impact and acceptability with it, and I definitely pay off on my experience of what it's like to be a deaf person athlete.

12:46 – Gresham Harkless

Yeah. Absolutely. And I've always felt like entrepreneurship at its heart is solving problems. And so when you have and see a problem that pops up or that comes up or probably has always been there, but now it's a lot more, I guess

12:57 – Erin Perkins

It's very visible. It's like, oh, like, right in front of you. Like, why didn't I think that they weren't meant to be until it happened?

13:05 – Gresham Harkless

Absolutely love that. And then so now I wanna ask you my absolute favorite question, which is the definition of what it means to be a CEO, and we're hoping to have different clinical CEOs on this show. So, Erin, what does being a CEO mean to you?

13:1 – Erin Perkins

I feel like that's a loaded question, though. I mean, being a CEO is basically being able to take ownership of doing what you love to do and be able to share that with another business owner. And I am able to support other business owners because I have a circle of women that I'm, like, super close with. And we all do different parts of our business, and I'm still able to show my support to them, and they show their support to them. It's very different than what I ran and what a CEO was from growing up because my parents had their own businesses. And I always thought, like, you know, it's always, like, suit, tie. I think I get to wear T-shirts.

13:59 – Gresham Harkless

So

13:59 – Erin Perkins

yeah. It's just, like, way better than I thought it would be.

14:03 – Gresham Harkless

Yeah. I think that as we kinda talked about with time and and and timing, you know, changing things, I think there's been an evolution as you talked about in the very beginning about what it means to be a CEO, what it means to be an entrepreneur, what it means to be a business owner. But you're absolutely right where I think you hit the, you know, the nail on the head when you talk about being able to kind of be kind of a service and be able to share what it is that you do with so many other businesses and entrepreneurs and people. And I think when we understand that, it creates that really phenomenal environment.

14:30 – Erin Perkins

Yeah. I love doing what I do for my clients. Like, I will be, like, the number one too for each one of them because I truly do believe in what they're doing. And I think that's, like, what makes me really proud to own my own business. I can authentically say this person is amazing. Like, I will support them going through, and we're able to help each other grow because there's so much business for all of it.

14:57 – Gresham Harkless

Yeah. Absolutely. There's, when you have that abundant mindset, you understand that there's a tremendous amount of opportunity that's out here. So I, truly appreciate that definition, and I appreciate your time even more. What I wanted to do is pass you the mic, so to speak, just to see if there's anything additional you can let our readers and listeners know. And, of course, how best they can get a hold of you and find out about all the awesome things that you're working on.

15:19 – Erin Perkins

So if you have any questions about accessibility, please feel free to reach out to me. I have a lot of my research free resources on my website, and I have you can also follow me on Instagram, Waverley underscore q. And that like, I still have so much information on there. And that's really the best way to get ahold of me. And then if you want more information, you can always ask me for my email, and I will email you. And I'm always happy to do video chats with anybody that wants to chat with me or they need a better understanding. And that's Instagram is also where I will be announcing when my voice comes out. So I'm really excited about that.

16:00 – Gresham Harkless

Yeah. Definitely. I'm super excited about it as well too. So I appreciate you for for putting your gifts towards helping so many other people and entrepreneurs and business owners, be more successful as well too. So we will definitely have the links and information in the show notes so that everybody can follow up with you as well there. But I truly appreciate you, Erin. Appreciate all the awesome things you're doing, and I hope you have a great day.

16:18 – Erin Perkins

Thank you so much for having me. I love what you're doing.

16:22 – Outro

Thank you for listening to the I AM CEO Podcast powered by Blue 16 Media. Tune in next time and visit us at iamceo.co I AM CEO is not just a phrase, it's a community. Be sure to follow us on social media and subscribe to our podcast on iTunes Google Play and everywhere you listen to podcasts, SUBSCRIBE, and leave us a five-star rating grab CEO gear at www.ceogear.co. This has been the I AM CEO Podcast with Gresham Harkless. Thank you for listening.

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